


Rain Check

by smuttyfox (Thalius)



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), (sort of?), Camping, DInner and a show, Exo Anatomy, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Inappropriate use of Light, it's sex on a roof folks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 21:57:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16941468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thalius/pseuds/smuttyfox
Summary: The war with the Taken has everyone stressed. Cayde proposes a sick day and some soup will solve their troubles.





	Rain Check

**Author's Note:**

> This is the extremely NSFW continuation of [this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10975125/chapters/24437616). It's been sitting in my WIPs for a few months but exam season is giving me a reason to write smut to de-stress, so. Here we are. And apologies in advance for any potential grammar snafus. I don't usually write one-shots this large. Anyway, enjoy!

After a while Amanda stopped leaving her window open in the vain hope that Cayde would come tumbling through it like he'd said he would. A wayward pigeon that careened into her desk and left shit on her pile of blueprints had been the final nail in the coffin; if he was going to come back to her place, he'd need to use the front door.

She didn't need an explanation for his absence, and he didn't offer any. He still came around her shop to bother her sometimes, which she pretended to suffer through. It was mostly just in passing, a quick one-two that was all-business, but then he'd give her a wink and a grin when he left that made the day a little less grey. He even sent scavenger scouts her way when he could, which she appreciated even more than the casual excuses he made to keep coming into her shop. The Hive were bleeding the Vanguard dry, and their guardians were bleeding  _her_  dry. She'd been pulling a lot of double or even triple shifts lately, so maybe it was for the best that both of them were so busy with work. Maybe he  _had_  shown up at her place before and she'd been sleeping in the corner of her warehouse instead. Oh well. Work still needed to get done.

So they continued to dance that dance for six weeks—or something, maybe, the days were blurring together—working and fretting and planning about anything and everything. She could daydream and relax later, when humanity wasn't being threatened by some cosmic asshole from a galaxy far, far away.

A break in the monotonous slog of being responsible came in the form of a takeout container awaiting her on her bench one morning. Steam made the plastic bag fog up, and the smell of shoyu ramen and gyoza hadn't yet permeated the entire room. It couldn't have been sitting there for more than ten minutes. Amanda looked over her shoulder and spotted a few of her support techs poking around with a Cabal shield generator. One of them looked up and waved at her, and she waved back automatically before turning back to her surprise meal.

There was a note taped to the bag. She let her backpack drop onto the bench beside the takeout and squinted at the sticky note. Clipped, careful calligraphy ran across the manila paper.

_Soup is good for the sinuses. So is altitude. 247-CF roof on Stroller Blvd N, Lowtown._

_~ Kisses, C6_

She shoved the note in her pocket, resisted the urge to look over her shoulder again, and opened up the bag. In addition to the foam containers, there was also a brown glass beer bottle wrapped in paper nestled inside. Amanda checked her watch. 0542. Maybe today would be a beer-for-breakfast kind of day. She worked out Cayde's encoded message easily enough: take a sick day and blow off some steam.

"Did y'all see who put this here?" she called out, not looking up from the foam containers.

She heard Sal reply. "Nah, ma'am." There was a pause before he spoke again. "We didn't see you neither, if you want to go take a long lunch."

She did look up at that. Sal and the other tech had already turned back to the shield generator, very purposefully not looking her way. She wondered maybe if Cayde has bribed them into saying that, and immediately felt guilty for the thought. She wasn't giving her team enough credit. She'd have looked the other way too, with how hard they'd all been working.

She fingered the note in her pocket. It was the perfect out. The Hangar would still be on its night cycle for the next hour or so, and she could easily slip away before the guard changed and the morning techs came in.

Amanda snuck another peek at her support staff, who were working diligently at dismantling the shield processor. She could trust them to run the place for a few hours more.

Holliday grabbed up the food, her backpack, and headed back to her bike. She began to type up a short, sweet apology to her team that she'd be taking a half-day—she couldn't quite rationalise a full day off, not when she wasn't  _actually_ deathly ill. Sal was in charge for now, she told them, but her comm was on standby if there was some catastrophe.

Guilt somewhat assuaged, she hopped on her sparrow, cradled the food between her legs, and headed to Lowtown under the cover of predawn.

* * *

_Think you can teleport me up there so I don't have to walk up all those flights of stairs?_

Amanda tugged at the hood of her scarf as she stared up at the building. It looked like a run-down apartment complex built from the shell of an old factory. It didn't look abandoned, per se, but it wasn't in great shape either. The exterior wasn't a good first impression, and she was starting to wonder what state the roof would be in.

_You're here!_ Her comm chimed as Cayde responded to her, and she saw he was still typing.  _And it's not teleporting. It's transmatting. Whole other thing._

She rolled her eyes.  _Maybe I'll just eat my soup down here then._

_Bleh._

Sundance poofed into existence next to her shoulder a moment later, hanging lazily in the air. "Good morning. The lady needs a ride up?" she asked.

"She does."

Her shell spun. "Then hold on to your quarks."

Amanda had gone through transmat many times before, but there was no getting used to how jarring or nauseating it was. She was standing on the pavement looking up at the apartment in one instant, and then in the next she wasn't. Her whole body shivered, her ears popped viciously at the sudden change in altitude, and her eyes throbbed in her skull as her brain tried to figure out where she was now. The symptoms only lasted for a moment, and she managed to power through the fleeting impulse to vomit.

She stumbled onto the roof as Sundance let her down gently. Neither of her hands were free, and she was only stopped from face-planting onto the gravel by landing on her ass instead.

She heard clapping to her left and glowered across the roof. Cayde was leaning against a dormant generator, his soup sitting open to cool.

"Did someone teach you that move or does grace just come naturally to you?"

"Learned it watching your hunters, actually," she replied, standing up and dusting off the stones clinging to the butt of her pants. She let her meal sit on the ground while she got her bearings. At least the nausea had gone away. "And this is a shit spot to eat breakfast," she added as she looked around. The roof was grey and cold and hard. Definitely not any place she wanted to be spending a fraudulent sick day. It was more likely that she was  _going_  to get sick being up here.

"Ah, you haven't seen what I've got set up." He waved her over behind the generator and grabbed his soup. She sighed and grabbed up her own meal to curl into her chest, hugging the warmth of it close to her body. She should've brought a sweater.

She turned the corner and peered around the generator. A glorified lean-to had been set up against it, with thick blankets spread out on the ground to minimise the discomfort of the gravel. The mouth of the tent opened up to a view of the City and the Urals beyond, which she grudgingly admitted was quite grand.

"You bought me some expensive bed," she began. "Just so we could sleep in the rough out here?"

"Not sleeping," he said. Cayde pointed to the blankets. "Watching. Sit."

Having no other option, she simply listened to him. The tent was only wide enough to fit them snuggly shoulder-to-shoulder and just barely cleared their heads, which she suspected was by design. Not the she minded. The generator at her back was cold, and Cayde was warm.

She opened up her plastic bag of food while he got himself settled beside her. It looked like he'd already started on his soup and had eaten all of his dumplings. "How long you been waitin' up here?" she asked, feeling her mouth water as she peeled off the lids of the containers.

She felt him shrug. "Not long. But I was hungry."

She scoffed. "Impatient, more like." A shiver ran through her as the steam wafted up from her shoyu. The sun wasn't quite up yet, and she hadn't dressed for sitting on the top of a skyscraper.

Cayde leaned forward and unwrapped the scarf and cloak draped around him. His bare head gleamed a dull turquoise in the grey light of dawn, and before she could protest or say that she was fine, he was settling his cloak around her shoulders. He even wrapped his striped scarf around her neck, but pulled the fabric up over her face to ward off any sincere comments about his chivalry.

"Thanks for the cape," she muffled, pulling the scarf back down around her chin. He was already hunched over his food and stabbing at a piece of pork.

"It's a cloak," he corrected her, having the advantage of being able to still speak perfectly with a mouth full of food.

"Whatever you say." She fingered the material of his cape—cloak, whatever. It was thin and pilled from centuries of abuse, but it was still toasty warm from his body heat. Even the hood was warm. She could smell and feel the faint residue of his Light on it, too; propane and campfire and cinnamon. Little whorls of the stuff floated off of the cloak and into the air, and she felt it like a physical thing against her skin that made her sink back against the generator with a sigh. She hadn't realised how tense she'd been just sitting there. Last few weeks had been pretty rough.

She grabbed her soup before she could say anything overly sentimental. Cayde had stolen one of her dumplings while she'd been busy tripping out over his cape, but she was too relaxed to care. Contact with his Light felt almost like some sort of high, and it was making her brain go a little mushy.

"Any particular reason we're playin' hooky today?" she asked around her breakfast.

He shrugged as he scooped up another piece of pork from his ramen. "Not really. Days are starting to blur together, a little. Needed something fun to switch things up."

She nodded in understanding. "Yeah, I hear you. Feel like I haven't even slept in my own bed in forever."

"Saw you taking a snooze beneath Everis' place not long ago," he said with a grin.

"Guess I'll need a new hidin' spot then. Didn't think anyone knew about it."

"Nah, you're fine. Probably. People don't usually climb around in the rafters of the Tower. See all sorts of things up there."

She frowned and swatted away his attempt to steal another dumpling. "Well why're you doin' it?"

"It's a better place to take a midday nap than your hot air return pipe."

She rolled her eyes. "Maybe we should be up there then instead of here."

"Doesn't have the same view." He nodded towards the City, and she looked out of the lean-to. It really was a good spot to watch everything. She could see the Walls and the mountains beyond, where the sun was just beginning to climb up the sky. A small slice of it peeked out from over the shoulder of the Urals, making their snow-capped peaks glitter platinum and white.

"Yeah," she murmured, taken aback. "This is real nice. Quiet, too."

"Could take a tour of the mothyards later, if you're up for it."

"Only got half a day off, I'm afraid," she responded automatically. She frowned then. "Ah, I dunno. Feels treasonous to leave my post."

"I do it all the time and I still do a great job," he assured her—or maybe he was just reassuring himself.

Her mouth was full, so she didn't bother to press him on that claim. Eating was more important.

The sun inched ever slowly upwards as they ate their breakfast and drank their beer. The hops from her drink and spices from her soup made her cheeks warm, and a small campfire set up shop right in the pit of her belly. Polishing off her ramen, she leaned back against the generator with a sigh. Her head was swimmy from the lager, and the intoxicating cinnamon scent of Cayde's cloak wasn't helping, either.

"'s kinda serene-like up here," she mumbled, suddenly feeling sleepy. Her shoulders slid toward him until they were bumping elbows, but he didn't move and she didn't mind.

"Gets noisier as the rest of the City wakes up. That's the nice thing about dawn." He looked at her and grinned. "Lucky that you're a morning person. Be a lot harder to pull off this whole romantic rooftop thing otherwise."

"Ah, so you do have an agenda."

"An agenda would be going to your place to watch movies."

She snorted and let her head rest on his shoulder. "Well maybe we can do that later," she whispered.

Cayde's hand came up behind her shoulders to snake beneath his cloak. She shuffled closer to him. Tiny, subtle pops and whorls of solar Light were dancing off of him; the smell of campfires and charcoal and baking bread mingled in the air. Each burst that sprang across her skin made her shudder with delight.

"Mm. Forgot how nice this was," she murmured, curling a loose arm around his waist. The hand he had on her arm throbbed with a sudden heat in response. The intensity of it coursed through her, and she bit back a sigh. What did it feel like to be bursting with Light all the time? Just the wisps of it emanating off of him were making her brain fog up and her eyes droop. Despite his insistence that they wouldn't be sleeping up here, she felt like she could snooze the day away. If anything, she wanted to move closer to him and soak up every part of it that she could. His Light was bright sunlight and burning whiskey in her chest and fresh propane. She remembered the feeling from before, but it was stronger now, and all the more addictive for it.

She'd practically sat on top of him before she felt the Light around them retract and recede. The warmth lingered, but her head cleared. She felt her face heat as she sat upright into a position that was a little less invasive.

"I didn't—I didn't know it was so… nice. You didn't do that before."

His expression was relaxed and thoroughly, smugly amused, but she was too high in the clouds to bother punching him in the arm for it. "Didn't want to freak you out."

"Doesn't. Freak me out, I mean. It's—it's real nice." Like a kiss, she supposed. If this was the sort of thing he'd meant when he'd said kissing exos wasn't  _traditional,_  then she'd take this any day of the week.

The plates of his face shifted into something a little more serious. His free hand reached up to cup around her cheek, and she gasped. The air seemed to glow faintly, and the energy grounded at her feet. The whiskey-in-her-chest feeling came back tenfold, spread down into her belly and flowing out toward her extremities. This was even more intense than before, now that he was using both hands. It was like fire was touching her skin but without the pain; just velvet flickers that made her think of dancing flame.

It lasted only an instant and then it receded again, dimming back into the normal, almost imperceptible crackle of air that guardians always emitted. She was flushed and a bit sweaty, as if she'd been lounging in the sun all day. Her skin was tight from it, not quite a sunburn.

She felt his face close to hers and she leaned into it, desperate for any extra contact with his Light. His throat alighted a honey yellow, his voice soft and careful.

"I'm glad you're enjoying this," he whispered. "But I'm hungry, and you're in the way."

She couldn't do anything but laugh. She was warmed down to her bones, and the harsh wind was now soothing against her skin. She felt like she was floating.

Amanda straightened up in order to not make a complete fool of herself, though. The lack of Light let her think more clearly. But the smile on her face wouldn't leave, and the fire burning in her stomach was still there. She wondered how long it would last.

Whatever trick he'd done with his Light had robbed her of anything smart to reply with, so she gestured for him to finish his meal, biting back the  _hurry up_  that came with it.

The reason he chose this particular spot became apparent the moment the sun began to rise. The sky was turning pink as the sun crested over the mountains. Amanda finished off her beer as the dawn came.

"Didn't think you were such a romantic," she murmured, keeping her voice low.

He gave her a look of mock hurt. "And after everything I've done for you."

"You can take it as a compliment."

He harrumphed and she patted his arm.

"Shh. You'll ruin it."

"You started it," he said under his breath, but she didn't rise to the bait. Finally Cayde finished his own meal, and the containers were shoved aside by impatient feet.

"No one's gonna come up here, right?" The beer added to the pleasant buzz that made her head heavy, and now with a belly full of food she decided that she was never moving again.

"You planning on doing something illegal?"

"Only amateurs do illegal things when no one is watching," she mumbled. Her head had found its way back to his shoulder again, and now with the food containers pushed off the blankets, she curled up tight against his side.

"I'll watch if that makes you feel better."

She rolled her eyes and let her hand casually drift down to rest on the top of his leg. "Well," she continued, forcing a nonchalant tone. "You might change your mind when you hear what my plans are."

"Public debauchery is a serious offense," he replied. His voice sounded a little strained, though, and she grinned into his scarf. "If that's what you're planning."

"If that's what I'm planning," she repeated.

They both fell silent, and in the silence she let her hands wander. Nothing crazy, but enough to get the blood pumping. Or whatever exos had. His pants were soft, and she found and traced the lines of alloyed and polymer thigh muscle beneath them. Yellow light flickered in her periphery from his throat, but he didn't make any noise.

The hand he had on her shoulder dipped down to her hip, his fingers worming their way under her shirt in response. They both watched the sun continue to rise as they felt around for each other. She couldn't rush if she wanted to, still intoxicated from the solar he'd let bleed onto her skin, and Cayde seemed in no hurry either.

"We really gonna do this on a roof?" she whispered after a while.

"Thought you said  _ruffs_  were romantic," he replied, doing a poor imitation of her accent.

"No, but ramen and watching the sunrise is."

"Ramen place'll kick us out if we get frisky in there. Doesn't have a good view of the Urals, either."

She laughed into his scarf. "Just—answer my question, before I get too excited to care where we are."

He paused before replying. "If you want," he said finally. "Or back to your place. It'd just take a second."

She thought about having to transmat again. "Nah. Here's good."

His response was another kiss of his hands. One of them had worked their way under her shirt, and the heat flared across her bare ribs this time. She didn't bother to hide her gasp, and rolled up onto her knees to face him.

"You gotta take some of that off," she said, tugging at the strap that crossed over his chest. "I wanna see you."

The plate over his eye quirked, but he withdrew his hands to comply. She shivered and looked down at the places his hands had been. There was a patch of pink skin on her arm, and the spot he'd touched her face still felt warm. Guardian versions of hickeys? She held back a snort at the thought.

Cayde tossed his pack into the gravel and set his weapons belt down gingerly beside him. She reached for one of his pauldrons and he paused to frown at her.

"What?"

"Don't touch my gear."

She scoffed. "I repair your stuff all the time."

"Not my  _outfit."_

She ignored him and tugged at a tie that strapped down a piece of armour as he tossed away his gloves. "How d'you even take all this stuff off? What if you're naked when you get a call from the Vanguard?"

"Then everyone would be getting quite the show," he answered, helping her with his pauldron.

"Seems inefficient."

"Looking this good takes work."

"For you maybe."

He was going to reply when she ducked in to kiss him, taking care to avoid bumping her head against his horn. "You don't gotta take it all off," she whispered, keeping close. "Just need to see the essential bits."

"Depends on what you consider essential." He tugged her closer and she fumbled on her knees, moving a little awkwardly to straddle his legs. His hands were now bare as they slid up her back, and when he pulsed Light through them again it was sudden and intense enough to draw out a moan from her.

"Do that again," she whispered, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Thought you wanted me to take my—"

"Later."

He laughed, throwing off honey light, and did as she asked. They were just tiny pulses, not like he'd done before, but it was still enough to make her shiver and dip her head down to rest on his shoulder. And all he'd done was touch her back. Another shudder rippled through her.

He continued to kiss her with his hands, and through the fog of Light she managed to slide her fingers up to his throat and then around the back of his neck.

"I did a bit of um, readin'," she said, frowning as she tried to concentrate on her words. "About exos, you know. Some of y'all got sensitive spots down your spine, startin' at the base of your head—" Her fingers felt around, trying to find the line of soft polymer that centred the support column of his spine. She'd seen the diagrams, but—well, she couldn't see the back of his neck.

"And how do you know that I do?" he asked. His hands were flat against her skin, and the pulses were getting more intense again. The smell of campfire permeated the air.

"Well," she breathed. "Do you?"

"If I took my gear off I guess you'd know. Relax," he added, pulling a palm away from her back to tug her hands down. "I'm not in a hurry."

"Just feels real good, what you're doin'. Wanted to return the favour."

"Later," he said, echoing her. It was her turn to laugh.

His hands found their way back to her skin, smoothing across her belly and up her ribs. The air began to crackle and glow with bursts of Light, like it had before, but it wasn't just a fleeting touch this time. One of his thumbs reached up and brushed a nipple, the contact like an iron brand. Her back arched into him as her body coursed with heat. She was so warm now that a sweat broke out across her forehead, as if they weren't sitting on top of a skyscraper in the open elements in early spring. She pressed herself close against him and shuddered. Cayde grabbed one of her hips and pulled her up flush with his lap. Something hard pressed into her thigh, but she couldn't tell if it was just his belt buckle, or, well….

"Heard also," she said, breathing hard. Her body ached like she'd been running. "That exos got analogues. To, you know."

"Not really analogues," he murmured. His face was against her cheek, his voice rumbling into her throat. She couldn't feel any breath from him, of course, but the reverberation of his voice was heady in its own way. "They're better."

She laughed at that. Her hand slid between them, feeling around the dip of his hip to the space between his legs. It had definitely not been his belt buckle. She didn't think her face could heat more than it already had, but her touch finally got a moan out of him. His hands burned on her body in response, one on her breast and one on her hip. Amanda bit down on her bottom lip and pressed her face into his neck, shuddering.

Cayde's arm wrapped around her waist and then she was being laid onto her back in the blankets. The lean-to's tarp brushed her face as Cayde followed her down. He let out a sigh into her shoulder and let his weight rest over top of her body. She fumbled up to his jacket as he hung over her and went looking for a zipper or a tie or anything that would pull it loose.

"I have to get up to take it off," he whispered. His voice sounded rough in a way she hadn't heard before. She felt a tremble run through her, and his grip tightened.

"Then do it before we're too far in." She didn't want him to sit up at all—the opposite of that, really. But she wanted to see him.

An uncontrollable shiver shook her bones as he rose up to his knees. Piercing cold air invaded the space he'd left and washed over her sweaty skin. Amanda grabbed for his cloak that was still draped around her shoulders as she watched him pull off the layers of his gear. He fumbled with the laces and the ties with what looked like unpracticed hands.

"How often d'you take all your stuff off? Seems like a hassle."

"Not often," he replied. His head disappeared into his jacket as he struggled to pull it up over his head. She was torn between snuggling deeper into his cloak and helping him. Amanda opted for the former and didn't bother to hide her snickering as he wrestled with his clothing.

"Mm," he muffled, his hands grabbing at the fabric stuck on his horn. "Great insights from the peanut gallery."

"You look funny," she responded, laughing some more. "Not that that ain't a regular thing."

"Ha-ha." He finally pulled his jacket off over his head and whipped it down into the gravel beside them. He huffed a sigh of relief and looked down at her, then suddenly looked bashful. "There," he said, almost shy.

She sat up on an elbow to look at him. His gear was form-fitting enough that her imagination hadn't needed to run too wild. Corded black polymer and soft alloy roped along his body in a tribute to the human form. It was too fine and intricate to look like armour, exactly, but the interlocking turquoise plates covering his body looked far more durable than plain old skin.  _Looked just as good though,_  she thought with a grin.

Amanda reached up and let her hand pass over his chest. Now uncovered from the waist up, it was much easier to feel the thrum of his body. Heartbeats and breathing were absent, replaced by a rhythmic pulsing that felt alive in its own right. She sat up properly so she could touch him. He was straddling her now, kneeling as he looked down at her. The tentative quirk of his face softened when she smiled up at him and pressed her hands to his chest. She couldn't bring herself to dismiss him with an off-handed joke, so she opted for honesty instead. "You look good," she whispered, and his expression dissolved into a smile.

"Of course I do." He pushed them back down into the blankets and heat enveloped her again. It still surprised her how warm and soft exos were, and wondered if it was just because of the Light or if all of them were like that. Cayde's hands snuck under her shirt again and she decided it didn't matter right now.

She gasped at his touch as she found the back of his neck again. Her fingers kneaded around and felt for the soft line of his spine. It was supposed to feel supple and almost squishy, she remembered the diagram saying, and it was only exposed when—

Cayde's body shuddered hard enough to shake her and a deep rumble came from the pit of his chest. She grinned. "So you  _do_  have it."

"Yes," he breathed, sounded winded. She rubbed the pads of her fingers at the base of his skull and then down to where his shoulder blades met. The strip felt almost like skin, and it was pliant when she applied pressure.

The movement of her fingers hitched as another shudder ran through him. Light poured out of him and pooled over her skin, seeping through her shirt. It was almost uncomfortably hot in its intensity, but the fiery ache that ran over her arms and stomach and breasts was enough to make her eyes roll back into her head a little.

He rumbled and moaned as she re-focused her efforts on his spine, but quickly grabbed for her hand. His fingers around her wrist burned incredibly. "Wait, wait," he said hoarsely. "Wait. I can't—"

"Am I doin' it wrong?" she asked into his neck. He was trembling, rocking the both of them.

"No, no you're—it's good, it's great." He let out a deep breath. "Too much. Too good."

Her fingers withdrew and found his face instead. "It don't matter to me," she murmured to him. "If you finish quick. S'okay."

He shook his head. "No. Don't want it to end yet. Keep—just relax," he mumbled, then made a sound like he was clearing his throat. "Just… just relax."

She'd never heard him so flustered. Amanda grinned to herself and filed away his reaction for later ponderings.

Cayde shuffled them around so that they were on their sides now. His hand danced over her cheek, almost hesitant, and then trailed down her past her collarbone between her breasts. "Hike your leg up," he said to her. "Over mine."

Her heartbeat pulsed in her ears as she curled her leg around his thigh. They were still both wearing pants, but pulling away to take them off was an unbearable thought. Cayde didn't seem particularly bothered about it, though, as one of his hands reached for the clasp of her belt and worked it loose. She kept herself busy by pressing kisses to the plates of his face. The light of his throat danced across her eyes with each one, blurring together with the crackling Solar that seemed to emanate from his body. Cinnamon whiskey and black cardamom and peppermint mingled in the air. The smell of it seemed to shift and change like the wind, each new burst of Light bringing forth another smell that made her nose twitch and her eyes water. Being this close to him as he bled so much Solar was overwhelming, and it would be uncomfortable if it weren't so arousing.

Her pants were loose enough that he was able to slip his hand into the front of them without much trouble. She'd had enough difficulty already concentrating on anything but his hands, but as his palm smoothed over her mons and pulsed Light, her vision threatened to black out.

Amanda became properly incoherent as his fingers worked over her skin. She couldn't do much more than dig her fingers into his arm and gasp into his collarbone. She knew now what he meant about wanting it to last—the pulse of his hands was painfully, painfully sweet, and she was quickly falling to pieces.

Her breath came out in short, sharp bursts, and she couldn't even find her voice long enough to say his name. His other arm was wrapped around her waist and held her close, and his forearm burned a solid line of Solar heat across her back. It was far, far too much. He'd barely been touching her for a minute and she was already so tightly wound she thought she'd snap. When one of his fingers pressed inside of her, she cried out into the solace of his chest and shuddered quickly and almost violently into her own embarrassingly sudden release.

His other arm kept a hold of her as she shook. She clung to him as he continued to rub and press his fingers between her legs, not letting up. Solar pulsed in time with the pulses of her own body, and Amanda was sure then that she would burst into flames.

She didn't, though, and instead fell from a high so high that she slumped into his body and felt her eyes fall closed almost immediately. Her breathing was a mess that she didn't care to sort out right now, and her heart was pounding deafeningly hard in her ears. Sweat traced her brow and soaked her shirt. She swore she had a fever.

His hand stilled and slowly slipped from her pants, coming to rest on her hip. Involuntary twitches and shudders made her limbs quake, but she wouldn't be able to move them if her life depended on it. She didn't really pass out, but she most certainly was not awake, either.

At some point his throat flared and he spoke softly. "You still there?"

How was she supposed to answer that? She blinked heavily and pulled her head back enough to look up at him. "Mm," she hummed, since that was all she could manage. He chuckled and pressed his face into her hair.

"Still think a half-day is enough?"

She processed what he said slowly. Ah, yes. That commitment she made that was surely promised a century ago.

"I do, um…." She felt for words. "I do have a fever I think, now. So no."

His chest rumbled as he let out a sigh. Her grip on his arm loosened from its stranglehold as the strength in her fingers gave out. Her arm flopped over his waist instead. Her fingertips brushed his spine, still soft and exposed. He twitched in response, and her brain chuffed along some more. Right. She might be puddle of mush, but she could still feel him hard on her leg, and his words were laboured and hoarse.

"Is it really that sensitive?" she asked, rubbing a thumb near the base of his spine. He rumbled into her hair.

"Yeah," he whispered. "Hard to—hard to touch by myself. So it's— _oh,"_  he gasped and curled around her as her fingers ran along his back.

"Now you relax," she said to him. Her arms still very much felt like rubber, but she managed to work her free one under his neck and around to the back of his head. He'd kept his Light in check as she'd recovered from her orgasm, but now it bled out of him again in waves.

Her leg was still thrown over his waist, and he curled his body up to rock his hips up into hers. She rocked back into him and felt him groan. So soon after she'd come, the contact made her head swim a little.

"Down at–at the base," he mumbled, and her fingers rubbed down his spine. "Of my back— _yes,_  oh, god, like that—just–just like—and at my head, at the top of—"

She wondered if comparing it to playing an instrument was too cheesy, but her thoughts were interrupted by the full-throated groan that came from Cayde. Her fingers danced over the supple polymer as she tested different kinds of pressure to see how he'd respond. Soft circles at the top and hard, deliberate pads of pressure at the base of his spine seemed the most effective. His hips jerked up into her, his cock rubbing on her thigh through his pants. It was his turn to be a gasping mess, his half-audible mumblings of  _yes_ and  _don't stop_ into her hair working in time with the press of her hands.

But despite his earlier assertions that it was too much, it seemed like it almost wasn't enough. He moaned and shuddered into her hair but didn't come.  _Or maybe he just takes longer than thirty seconds,_  she thought as her face heated.

"What else?" she asked anyway, hoping he'd understand. She hadn't fully recovered, and words were still a struggle.

"I just—" A hand he'd had clamped to her shoulder loosened and slipped between them. "Just a bit more—"

"I can do that for you," she whispered, and began to pull her hand away from his neck.

He arched up and back into it. " _No,_  no don't—don't stop, please, I—I just—" His hand slipped down into his own pants and he grabbed a hold of himself. "Amanda," he rasped, sounding like he was struggling to speak. "Oh, god, I—"

The groan that rocked through him sounded almost pained. She didn't let up the pressure of her fingers, and he switched between bucking back into her hands and up into his own palm. She suddenly felt much less embarrassed at her own dramatic display, because Cayde coming to pieces in her arms was a singular pleasure that made heat pool in her belly.

He'd curled into a tight ball around her, his body strung taut and quivering. Where she'd been quiet, he was noisy; he moaned through his own release, the sound only slightly muffled with his face pressed to the top of her head. The plates of his face tug into her skin, but she held onto him as he worked through it, keeping her fingers running along his spine that seemed to make his whole body shiver.

She slowly eased up on his spine as he shook and mumbled into her hair. The thrum coming from his chest was almost audible, vibrating wildly against her ribs. He didn't need to catch his breath, but his chest still heaved with the effort, and even as the spasms eased, his arms and legs twitched with the aftershock.

She could see the sun peaking over his shoulder. It had successfully climbed past the Urals and hung in the morning sky, palling it a grey-blue. Amanda watched the way it lit up the plains beyond the Wall, striking off the old ships and transports that lay rusted in the fields.

Cayde took his own time to recover, as properly incoherent as she had been. His weight pressed into her, a pleasant pressure that made her smile. She pressed a kiss to the plate of his jaw. "You still here?" she asked, echoing his earlier question.

"Dunno," he replied, making her laugh.

"I'll wait for you then."

He huffed his thanks. She ran a single fingertip up the back of his neck, which got a jolt out of him. His hand immediately reached up and grabbed her arm, though his fingers lacked any real strength. "You are going… to kill me."

"Good way to go."

"Mmf."

She settled her arm over his shoulder instead, deciding to have some mercy on him. His Light was soft now, lazily hanging in the air like a heavy blanket. The smell was smoky, like a charcoal grill in the open summer sunlight. Relaxed and open. It was still wonderful, but it wasn't the intoxicating, sharp bite of whiskey and cinnamon any longer.

"Been doin' sex all wrong," she murmured, tracing the line of his bicep. "Need to start doin' it with guardians more."

That got a tired chuckle out of him. "S'even better with two of them."

" _You've_  had a threesome?"

"That's not what I—" He pulled away to look at her then, frowning. "Hey. Your incredulity wounds me."

"I'm a pragmatist." She sobered a little and smiled at him. "Honest, though, that was wonderful. Don't even know how to describe it. Was like doin' drugs, almost."

"Oh, you've done drugs, have you?"

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah."

He pulled her in tight and wove one of his hands through her hair. It was the light, soft sort of touch he'd done before, back in her room. That felt like forever ago, too. A gentle, contented sound murmured in his chest, sort of like a purr.

"It was good," he said seriously. "Really good."

"Must be annoyin' to have your sensitive bits in a place you can't reach."

"It's more awkward than anything. Can't really do it lying down." He let out a sigh. "Much better when someone else does it, anyway. Leaves my hands free."

"To touch yourself some more."

Exos couldn't blush, but she heard the chagrin in his voice when he spoke. "You only have two hands, so—"

"S'alright, I'm just teasin' you." She pressed a kiss to his shoulder. "Besides, it was kinda hot, seein' you all achy like that."

"You put on a good show yourself."

It was her turn to blush. "Ain't a show. You know what you're doin'."

"Ah, well. You know. Helps when you have Light that can vibrate."

She snorted into his shoulder. "It does  _not_ do that! It's more like—ah, I dunno. I can't explain it. Like burnin', but not painful. Sorta. Felt real good, anyhow."

"I'm glad."

She felt the plates of his back shift and pressed her palm flat on his back. The strip of his spine was no longer open, and when she ran her fingers along it, hard ridges were in its place. "What're you doin'?"

"Spine's not always exposed. Get awkward every time you lean on a door frame otherwise."

"Is that like—" She frowned, trying to think of how to ask it. "Is that like a thing?"

"A thing?"

"Like Bray just up and gave y'all a horny strip along your back?"

She was jostled around a little as he laughed. "'A horny strip'?"

"Whatever the fancy name is for it."

"I wasn't really consulted on the design," he responded. "Or I don't remember being asked, anyway. I'm sure they figured it out at some point in the process and kept it in."

"An extra way to get your rocks off sounds like fun."

"It's—"

Her watch beeped at her then, interrupting their conversation, and she held it up to squint at the screen. The warm, mellow feeling in her chest evaporated as she read the message. "Ugh."

"Duty calling?"

"It is if I wanna be responsible."

"Do you?"

"Not really." She let her hand drop back down to his waist. "Surprised you haven't gotten any calls."

"Oh I have." Sundance poofed over their heads and looked down at them. Cayde quirked his brow plate. "I just told the messenger to be quiet."

"Better than shooting me," Sundance replied. Amanda frowned and grabbed for the Cayde's cloak. She was completely dressed, but felt naked under the ghost's gaze.

"Wait. Has she been, uh, hangin' around? Like, while we were, you know…."

"Nah, not really," Sundance said. "Can still hear my guardian's thoughts, though, even from the Vanguard table. Pretty wild stuff. Ikora thinks Cayde's out playing cards. Ha!"

"That's—" Amanda twisted her mouth up. "That's weird."

"The price of Light," Cayde said, shrugging. "You get used to it."

A number of very uncomfortable follow-up questions surfaced in her mind, but she decided to voice exactly none of them. Sundance, to her credit, saw her concerned expression and poofed out of sight, giving them at least the illusion of privacy.

"Sorry," Cayde said, and she looked back at him. "I should have told you before. I've forgotten about it by now, but—"

"Nah, it's… I shoulda figured anyway. You told me before about how close ghosts are with their guardians."

"It's still weird, I know. Sundance tries to give me space when stuff like this happens, but—well, it hasn't happened in a while. She was pretty excited. For me, I mean," he added, seeing the look of dawning horror on Amanda's face. "She doesn't get a kick out of it, or anything, just—"

Amanda pressed a hand over his mouth. "Stop diggin', Cayde. Way too much information."

He laughed and thankfully stopped over-explaining. Her trepidation receded quickly, though. It was easy enough to pretend they were alone, and it wasn't as if Sundance was broadcasting what they were doing. Part of her was morbidly curious, but she'd save that line of questioning for a time when she wasn't tangled up with him on a makeshift bed.

She heaved a deep sigh and rolled onto her back. The tarp was a patchy blue, lit up now by the sun, washing their lean-to in a navy hue.

"I don't think I can move for a while," she murmured. She threw an arm over his stomach as he flipped onto his back beside her. Her skin was sweaty and tight, and the cool air was a welcome respite. "And I definitely can't go back to the Hangar in this state." she raised her head to look down at herself. "Looks like I ran a marathon."

"It's a good look." His hand fumbled for hers and twined their fingers together. They were both a bit of a mess, but that was a problem for future Amanda. Right now she was too exhausted and too content to do anything but lie here with him. "And if you're willing to be irresponsible for a bit longer, I'll make good on that mothyard tour. I need to avoid the Tower for my own sake if Ikora's gonna believe Sundance. Which she probably doesn't anyway. That woman knows too much."

She considered his offer. She wanted to, badly, but switching out of work mode even for a day felt like a betrayal.

"How about a nap first," she said. It was sort of a compromise, and maybe sleep would help clear her head. "Wanna just stay here with you for a little while."

"I need to catch up on my sleep anyway," he said. She grinned and pushed her cheek up against his shoulder. His fingers tightened around hers, and she let out a sigh. The tarp rustled overhead with the wind, and the noise from the city began to drift up to the roof. It all sounded so far away, and Cayde was so close.

"Sounds mighty fine," she said back, and put work out of her mind for a while.


End file.
